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Do-It-Yourself Pyramidal Mold for Nanotechnology Changsuk Yun,†,§ Hosuk Kang,‡,§ Juhyoun Kwak,*,† and Seongpil Hwang*,‡ †

Department of Chemistry, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291, Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea ‡ Department of Advanced Materials Chemistry, Korea University, 2511, Sejong-ro, Sejong 30019, Republic of Korea

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ABSTRACT: The handcrafted fabrication of a pyramidal mold on a silicon wafer for nanopatterning was investigated. This process started with the manual delivery of an aqueous glycerol solution onto the SiO2/Si wafer using a micropipette and subsequent drying to form a hemisphere whose diameter is in the range of hundreds of micrometers. A coating of polystyrene (PS) onto this wafer generates a circular hole caused by dewetting. Subsequently, anisotropic wet-etching with the PS film as a mask produces a pyramidal trench, whose apex approaches hundreds of nanometers. Various elastomeric materials were casted into this pyramidal mold. A pyramidal tip mounted on a simple micropositioner was used for electrochemistry and patterning of a protein. First, an agarose hydrogel was cast with a hydrogel pen for the electrochemical reaction (HYPER). The redox reaction at the HYPER− electrode interface demonstrated the characteristics of an ultramicroelectrode or bulk electrode based on the contact area. Second, the pyramidal polydimethylsiloxane served as a polymer pen for the contact printing of silane on a glass substrate. After the successive immobilization of biotin and avidin with fluorescence labeling, the resulting fluorescence image demonstrated the successful patterning of the protein. This new process for the creation of a pyramidal mold, referred to as a “do-it-yourself” process, offers advantages to nonspecialists in nanotechnology compared to conventional lithography, specifically simplicity, rapidity, and low cost.



INTRODUCTION Advances in nanotechnology have enabled numerous studies of diverse, small, and complex structures in various fields, leading to nanostructures with chemical functionalities.1,2 In spite of the development of highly precise state-of-the-art lithography tools such as deep ultraviolet3 and electron beam lithography,4 nanofabrication remains a challenging task for chemists, materials scientists, and biologists, because it requires expensive, complex, and time-consuming processes. There are few methods as alternatives. One is soft lithography based on an elastomeric stamps5 and another is the scanning probebased technique.6,7 Soft lithography enables the rapid prototyping of both microscale and sub-microscale structures through the transfer of molecules to the surface of a substrate using an elastomeric stamp,8 providing the rapid pattern formation over a large area by parallel printing. During this process, a predefined mold for the stamp defines the printed structures of the nanostructures. In contrast, scanning probebased techniques such as dip-pen lithography are direct-draw methods for delivering/removing molecules from surfaces.7,9 In theory, these methods can be used to fabricate arbitrary nanostructures on a surface using a single probe with a micropyramidal structure with an extremely sharp apex. To achieve parallel printing for mass production, polymer pen lithography, introduced by the Mirkin group, is based on a © XXXX American Chemical Society

polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamp consisting of an array of the pyramids (∼11 000 000 pens per array).10 The array allows the high-throughput and large-scale patterning while retaining the capability of arbitrary pattern formation, though leveling problems must be considered for high quality over a large area.11 The pyramidal structure of an elastic material is also a significant technique for nanoscience. Our group reported a hydrogel pen for electrochemical reactions (HYPER), in which a pyramidal-shaped hydrogel containing an electrolyte offers an electroactive area on the nanometer scale through contact on an electrode for 3D printing by electrodeposition.12 HYPER can also be applied to a sensing platform with various chemical reactions.13 A master or mold for the pyramidal shape, however, still requires complex procedures, including CAD design, mask fabrication, and photolithography steps,8 which are not familiar in chemical and biological laboratory environments. If one can fabricate a handcrafted pyramidal mold using typical laboratory items such as a micropipette and produce a handmade nanostructure with a pyramidal tip and a stepper, such a “do-it-yourself (DIY)” manufacturing process may reduce the costs, energy use, time, and complexity of the Received: July 1, 2019 Accepted: August 13, 2019

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DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b01995 ACS Omega XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX

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Scheme 1. Procedures for Handcrafting the Pyramidal Molda

a (a) Glycerol acts as a sacrificial template for the micrometer-scale hole on PS films. Wet-etching through this hole creates the pyramidal vertex with a nanoscale inside the silicon wafer, which is served as the template for the pyramidal shape. The photo in the solid box shows the manufactured pyramidal mold and the six red circles indicate successful etched holes. (b) Fabrication of a single pyramidal structure using the pyramidal mold.

the patterning of biomaterials with the aid of a USB microscope and a micropositioner. Thus, many scientists can access nanoscience on their own using a pyramidal shape in the absence of cumbersome steps such as CAD designing, photolithography, and/or vacuum coating/etching, given the advantages of the rapid prototyping and mask-free arbitrary patterning for various research purposes.

creation of a pyramidal mold, thus enabling more open access to nanoscience. A pyramidal-shaped stamp has a sharp tip smaller than a micrometer, while the diameter at the base becomes approximately several hundred micrometers. A pyramidal hole on the surface can be achieved by the anisotropic etching of a silicon wafer with a resist film containing circular holes of hundreds of micrometers as a mask, this is feasible through a handcrafted procedure with conventional laboratory tools. A commercially available micropipette can deliver small amounts of liquid in volumes as low as 0.2 μL. The diameter of the residue after the evaporation of the solvent shrink drastically depending on various parameters, such as the concentration of the solute and the surface properties.14 Glycerol is typically added to inks for the printing of biomaterials and electronics owing to its low vapor pressure and hygroscopic properties.15,16 Reports of the fabrication of an array consisting of glycerol by atomic force microscopy (AFM) demonstrated that glycerol is relatively stable with regard to evaporation.17 Thus, residual glycerol after water evaporation offers a smaller hemisphere. This hemispheric glycerol can be transferred to the circular holes in polymer films due to the immiscibility between the hydrophilic glycerol and a hydrophobic solvent of the polymer, such as water in a breath figure18 or polyethylene glycol19 can serve as the sacrificial templates for the patterning of polymer films. Herein, we report a handcrafted pyramidal mold, the fabrication of a pyramidal stamp, and the application of these items to create a handmade nanostructure. Our method is based on the manual formation of ten holes in polymer films on silicon oxide using a micropipette, which served here as a mask for the wet anisotropic etching of silicon in a tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solution. The single polymer structure molded from this template can serve as a polymer pen for both nanoscale electrochemistry and



RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Scheme 1 shows the process by which the handcrafted mold and pyramidal structure were created. First, the surface of the commercial SiO2/Si wafer undergoes a treatment with hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) to make it hydrophobic. Then, 0.2 μL of a 0.2% (w/w) glycerol aqueous solution is delivered onto this hydrophobic HMDS surface of the silicon wafer (SiO2/Si) by a pipette. The average diameter of the hemispherical drops is 0.84 mm (n = 3). After the evaporation of water in a chamber connected to a pump for 10 min, the residual glycerol forms a quasi-hemisphere of around one hundred micrometer in diameter. Although the sizes of the glycerol patterns are determined by the volume and concentration of the glycerol solution (Figures S1 and S2), we fixed these parameters. The HMDS treatment enhances the hemispherical shape of glycerol during the evaporation step. Simple dropping of 60 μL of a 2% (w/w) polystyrene (PS)/ toluene solution onto the substrate wets the surface, except for the hydrophilic area of hemispherical glycerol. In this way, a stable PS film is formed after the toluene dries completely. Subsequently, the glycerol is removed by washing with water and quasi-circular holes in the PS film are formed. During the subsequent etching of SiO2 in a HF aqueous solution for 150 s, a PS film with circular holes serves as a mask for the transferring of the circular pattern into a SiO2 layer. The next anisotropic etching step in a 25% (w/w) TMAH aqueous solution (80 °C for 5 h) creates pyramidal holes under the B

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Figure 1. (a) Residual glycerol after evaporation for 10 min. (b) Circular hole on the PS film after washing glycerol with water. (c) Circular pattern of Si after etching of 500 nm SiO2 into HF aqueous solution for 150 s. The etched plane of Si after incubating in 25% (w/w) TMAH aqueous solution for 2 (d) and 5 h (e). (f) SEM image after etching for 5 h. The inset shows the zoomed in image of the sharp tip.

Figure 2. (a) Pyramidal agarose manufactured from the mold. (b) Experimental setup for localized electrochemistry at the hydrogel−Au interface. (c) CA result for pressing the agarose tip with the Au working electrode (1 μm per 5 s, 20 times). (d) CVs of the agarose tip at 1 μm (red) and 20 μm (black) compressed lengths (scan rate: 50 mV/s).

controlled according to the weight percentage of glycerol (Figures S1 and S3). It is also important to note that only six cases of the ten trials produce these successful circular residues, which determine the sharpness of the pyramidal mold. To guarantee a circular residue outcome for a sharp tip of the pyramid, several drops of glycerol solution were delivered with an appropriate pitch over a piece of the silicon wafer 1 cm × 2 cm in size. Specifically, a larger number of trials with various drops on one piece of Si can create a successful circular shape even with a ca. 60% yield without any expensive and complex instruments as shown in Figure S2. It should be mentioned that one mold of a good pyramid can be reusable as the

circle opening of the SiO2 layer. Scheme 1b shows the method used to fabricate the pyramidal structure. The prepolymer is poured into the mold. After curing, the pyramidal structure is peeled off manually. Figure 1 presents optical images of each fabrication step. Figure 1a shows an optical image of residual glycerol on a SiO2/Si wafer after the delivery of 0.2 μL of a 0.2% (w/w) glycerol aqueous solution followed by evaporation in a vacuum chamber for 10 min and the dropping of the PS solution onto the substrate surface. The shape of the residual glycerol is mainly circular with a diameter of ca. 132 μm on average [n = 6, standard deviation (SD) = 13.34]. The size can be C

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Figure 3. (a) Experimental setup for APTES patterning on a glass. The digital analytical balance with 1 mg resolution was used as a sensor for contact between glass and pyramidal PDMS. (b) Fluorescent image of an array of 2 × 2 streptavidin−FITC with ca. 10 μm diameter at an interval of 65 μm on the substrate patterned by pyramidal PDMS with APTES ink.

working electrode and the faradaic current of the oxidation of FcMeOH caused by the formation of the EDL. The charging current disappears very quickly and then only the faradic process governs the anodic current. Note that the current appears to be constant, independent of time. This behavior deviated from the well-known Cottrell equation and is a representative characteristic of the nanoscale contact, indicating the enhanced mass transportation of FcMeOH similar to the well-known radial diffusion of an ultramicroelectrode (UME).12 With every increase of the contact area upon an increase of 1 μm in the z-position, similar behaviors were observed, except for the raised anodic currents demonstrating the successful fabrication of the pyramidal shape. Assuming that the vertex of agarose is sharp, the main factor for determining the current value and cyclic voltammogram (CV) shape is not the size of the agarose base (b) but the deformation length (d) as long as d ≪ b condition, according to the previous HYPER.12 Brief introduction for HYPER is shown in Figure S5. Figure 2d shows CVs with the contact position between the gel tip and the working electrode. Upon first contact, the CV presented a sigmoidal shape, similar to a UME. Assuming that the contact area is a simple square, the side length of the square is ca. 1.41 μm. When the contact area becomes larger (20 μm compressed length), the CV indicates a general diffusion-controlled system. The pyramidal shape cannot offer complete radial diffusion, but the tilted sidewalls contributed to enhanced diffusion until the end of the diffusion layer arrived at the base of the pyramid. A larger contact area with a lower height to the base changes the diffusion from a radial-like process to typical linear diffusion. These electrochemical experiments clearly demonstrate that HYPER created by the handcrafted mold offers a simple and inexpensive means of realizing sub-micrometer-scale contact down to hundreds of nanometers. This concept can be applied to other nanotechnologies, such as the pattern formation of small molecules and biomaterials on the substrates created by the pyramidal PDMS. This pyramidal PDMS tip was inked with (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES) and then printed onto a glass substrate, demonstrating the ability of this method to fabricate nanostructures. The pyramidal tip was mounted on a conventional analytical balance after the inking of the tip with an ethanol solution containing 1% (v/v) APTES (Figure 3a). A balance acted as a sensing element to detect the contact between the pyramidal PDMS and the glass substrate. Next,

template for the polymeric pyramid. The subsequent removal of glycerol with water produces the circular hole on the substrate shown in the optical image in Figure 1b. The PS film serves as a resistive mask for the HF solution, transferring the hole pattern onto the wafer (Figure 1c). Next, silicon was anisotropically etched into a 25% (w/w) TMAH aqueous solution at 80 °C. Figure 1d shows the truncated pyramid structure in the middle of the etching process. At the end of the anisotropic etching step, an optical image of the pyramid demonstrates the vanishing point (Figure 1e), whereas a SEM image shows a clear pyramidal shape (Figure 1f). The base size of the patterns is a key factor for determining the etching time. Under these conditions, the average base length is ca. 150 μm (n = 6, SD = 12.79). From scanning electron microscopy, the lateral size of the sharp tip of the pyramidal tip is typically on the micrometer scale (Figure 1f, inset). Thus, one can obtain a sharp tip of an average size of 2.62 μm (n = 6, SD = 2.15) by the simple delivery of a glycerol solution with several wet chemistry steps. For electrochemistry, the pyramidal agarose gel tip was prepared by immersing the pyramidal mold into a hot agarose sol. The pyramidal agarose gel, referred to as HYPER, was used for localized electrochemistry, demonstrating the potential for nanoscale electrochemistry, though other polymeric pens can be fabricated by the mold (Figure S4). Figure 2a shows the successful fabrication of HYPER (base length of ca. 128 μm and height of ca. 90 μm). These hydrogels can contain various electrolytes in their 3D polymeric structure.20 After soaking HYPER in an electroactive solution containing 1 mM FcMeOH in 0.103 M KClO4, the pyramidal tip was mounted onto a micropositioning system to control the contact area with the working electrode, as shown in Figure 2b. The Au working electrode was brought into close proximity to the end of the tip from above the tip, while a potentiostat with a threeelectrode configuration was connected. For localized electrochemistry, the contact area is defined by the position of the tip on the z-axis, and two USB cameras were used with the coarse approach between HYPER and Au. With the sufficiently positive potential of the Au working electrode for the oxidation of FcMeOH, the Au electrode is moved closer to HYPER in micrometer steps. When the apex came into contact with Au, the anodic current abruptly increased in the chronoamperometry (CA) curve (Figure 2c). At this time, the anodic current is a mixture of the charging current to the electrical double layer (EDL) between the ionic electrolyte and the conducting D

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will allow nonspecialists or scientists in developing countries an easy access to nanotechnology for their research.

the glass substrate mounted on a micropositioner was brought into contact with the pyramidal PDMS. For the controlled fabrication of the nanostructure, two parameters should be considered. The first is the contact area between PDMS and the glass substrate, which defines the pattern size. The second is the dwell time, which influences the dot size by the lateral diffusion of the ink. We assumed that the former is the only parameter of importance here because the effect of the dwell time is not dominant in microcontact printing under an ambient environment. Two complementary techniques control the contact diameter. First, the USB camera offers a vision system to determine the distance and the contact/detachment between the tip and the substrate. In a commercial AFM system, the vision system is mounted on the top of a tip cantilever whose focal plane is synchronized with the movement of a nanopositioner on the z-axis. A micropositioner, however, is difficult to implement for such a complex function. Specifically, this type of a vision system provides only rough information pertaining to contact/ detachment. To control the diameter of the contact area, we used the detection of the pressure (4−6 mg weight change) by a conventional analytical balance caused by the contact. This method is not as precise as a state-of-the-art and commercial scanning probe microscope system in terms of the contact area. The microscale feature sizes, however, were successfully generated at approximately the micrometer scale, making them sufficient for chemical or biological applications such as arrays of molecules. For example, a sulfo-NHS-biotin/dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solution was dropped onto the substrate patterned with APTES for biotinylation. The NHS-activated biotin was conjugated with the amine functional group of APTES on the glass. A streptavidin−fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) complex was then selectively bound to biotin by means of strong avidin−biotin interaction. A 2 × 2 array of avidin proteins was printed. A fluorescence image from the FITC dyes shows the successful fabrication of dots (Figure 3b). The diameter of each dot is approximately 10 μm with a spacing distance of 65 μm, indicating sufficient control of the contact area from the analytical balance. This result demonstrates that a micrometer-scale pattern array of biomolecules can be fabricated using a DIY pyramidal mold, a micropositioner, a USB camera, and an analytical balance without any other special apparatuses. This manuscript focused on the fabrication of a DIY pyramidal mold and its application for HYPER and the array of biomolecules within a small area. The patterning for a large area is out of the scope because it requires more complex and expensive instrument. At this stage, we may suggest that the pyramidal array of PDMS will be useful,10 which can be fabricated by our single pyramidal tip.21



EXPERIMENTAL SECTION Preparation of the Pyramidal Mold. A SiO2/Si wafer (thickness of silicon oxide: 500 nm) was cut into 1 cm × 2 cm pieces with a diamond knife. The pieces were cleaned in a piranha solution (3:1 mixture of H2SO4 and 30% H2O2, v/v) for 2 min and rinsed with deionized water (DI). The wafer was then coated with a vapor of HMDS in a vacuum desiccator for 20 min. Subsequently, 0.2 μL of a 0.2% (w/w) glycerol solution was placed on the modified wafer using a micropipette (Eppendorf, 2.5 μL), and the wafer was dried in a vacuum chamber for 10 min. Next, 60 μL of a 2% (w/w) PS (average Mw: 192 000)/toluene solution was dropped onto the wafer patterned with glycerol, with a subsequent drying step for 30 min. The circle patterns on the wafer were generated by the washing away of the glycerol with distilled water (DI) for 10 s. The exposed SiO2 layer through the circle patterns was removed in a 1:10 (v/v) HF/DI solution for 150 s and rinsed with DI. The wafer was placed into a tube (15 ml, Falcon) with 5 mL of TMAH (25% w/w) aqueous solution and incubated in an 80 °C water bath under vigorous stirring for 5 h. For stirring, the tube was fixed on a clamp connected to a vortex machine (Scientific Industries, Genie 2). A needle was fixed onto a lid of the tube for degassing during the etching process. All optical images were obtained using a microscope (OLYMPUS, IX71). Preparation of the Agarose Gel and Procedure for Hydrogel Electrochemistry. An agarose powder was mixed with DI (1:14, w/w) and incubated in a 90 °C water bath to dissolve the gel. Bubbles of the agarose sol were removed through a repeated process in a microwave oven for few seconds followed by incubation in a water bath. After degassing, the mold for the pyramidal structure was put into the agarose sol. The agarose sol was allowed to cool at room temperature for complete polymerization and was then peeled from the mold. The parts of the gel around the pyramid structure were cut for easy contact. The pyramidal gel was soaked in 1 mM ferrocenemethanol (FcMeOH) and 0.103 M KClO4 solution for more than 4 h. The gel was fixed on a Petri dish containing an electrolyte, Ag/AgCl as a reference, and a Pt counter electrode. The Petri dish was placed on the metal plate of the micropositioner. Additionally, an Au working electrode was fixed on a stepper motor. The two potentiostats (CHI 900B) were employed: one for electrochemistry and the other to control the stepper. The working electrode was controlled in a downward direction to reach the agarose pyramidal tip while two USB cameras were used to observe the process (Dino-Lite, AD7013MTL). As soon as contact occurred between the Au electrode and the gel, a current signal was generated from zero to the nanoampere scale. At this point, the working electrode approached the pyramidal gel at a rate of 1 μm per 5 s. Patterning of a Biomaterial on a Glass Substrate. The PDMS base was mixed with a curing agent at a 10:1 weight ratio with the subsequent removal of bubbles in a vacuum chamber for 30 min. Before molding, the pyramidal mold was coated with trichloro(1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorooctyl)silane in a vacuum desiccator for 20 min to prevent adhesion to PDMS (Sylgard 184). The PDMS prepolymer was poured into the pyramidal mold and cured for 2 h in an oven at 65 °C. The cured PDMS was then manually peeled from the mold. The periphery of the pyramid was cut with a blade for easy contact.



CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, we demonstrated the successful fabrication of a pyramidal mold by the handcrafted delivery of a glycerol solution onto a Si wafer and a subsequent anisotropic etching step. The hydrogel molded from this template is suitable for nanoelectrochemistry processes (e.g., HYPER) upon the introduction of an electrolyte inside of it. A protein array on the micrometer scale was also patterned on a glass substrate by means of a pyramidal PDMS process with ink. In addition to the simple fabrication process, that is, a “DIY” process, both hydrogel electrochemistry and contact printing were successfully utilized with the simple aid of two USB cameras and a conventional analytical balance. We believe that this approach E

DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b01995 ACS Omega XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX

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A glass substrate was cleaned with a piranha solution for 20 min. Both PDMS and the glass underwent an O2 plasma treatment for 2 min (Femto Science, 100 W). The activated pyramidal tip was inked with 1% (v/v) APTES in an ethanol solution for 10 s and the residual solution was dried under blown N2. The activated glass was fixed at a stepper and controlled downward using the CHI 900B potentiostat program on a micrometer scale. At this point, the analytical balance (A&D COMPANY, HF-200) and two USB cameras were used to recognize the contact between the glass and PDMS. The dwell time was within 10 s. The substrate patterned with APTES was incubated in 5 mg/mL sulfo-NHSbiotin in DMSO for 30 min and washed with DMSO and water to remove excessive biotin from the surface. The biotinylated substrate was then incubated in 0.1 mg/mL streptavidin−FITC in phosphate buffer (0.01 M, pH 7.4) for 30 min to form an avidin−biotin system and then washed with water to remove any unbound avidin.



ASSOCIATED CONTENT

* Supporting Information The Supporting Information is available free of charge on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b01995. The plot for size of glycerol dots and pyramidal bases versus concentration of glycerol; 6 × 6 pyramidal array with statistical information; DIY process using 0.1% (w/ w) glycerol; photo of single pyramidal structure; schematic illustration for electrochemistry of pyramidal hydrogel (PDF)

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Corresponding Authors

*E-mail: [email protected] (J.K.). *E-mail: [email protected]. Phone: +82-44-860-1332 (S.H.). ORCID

Changsuk Yun: 0000-0002-1550-6018 Juhyoun Kwak: 0000-0001-8937-6212 Seongpil Hwang: 0000-0003-4316-194X Author Contributions §

Equal Contribution to this work.

Notes

The authors declare no competing financial interest.



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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

J.K. acknowledges support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MOE: Ministry of Education) (no. 2017R1D1A1B03031806). S.H. acknowledges support from the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea Government (MSIP) (no. NRF-2017R1A2B4012056). This Research also has been performed as a cooperation project of “Basic project (referring to projects performed with the budget directly contributed by the Government to achieve the purpose of establishment of the Government-funded research Institutes)” and supported by the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT). F

DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b01995 ACS Omega XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX